I admit sometimes sitting at my desk at work with no coherent thought in my head. (A pause from the great and deep thoughts that usually live there.) At those moments I might tweet some bullshit or look at eBay.

One day I looked at eBay and saw something that had just been added, saw $50, and immediately bought it. I mean in a matter of seconds. It was only afterwards that I looked at what the hell it was. It has wooden ends, knobs, a ribbon controller. The logo looks enticing. I found a video of someone playing it and had to conclude it sounded like a walrus trying not to vomit. My apologies to the creator of this fine instrument, but still.

Some interesting facts: the ANALOG RIBBON SYNTH BY HARD MOD is hand made in Mexico. The unit I now own belonged to a local Shakespearean company, and was noted as never used. Of course you are putting on Othello or something and you say – we really need something that sounds like a walrus trying not to vomit. But once it arrives, cooler heads prevail.

What it does is send a saw wave through a low pas filter. Two LFOs control the pitch of the oscillator and a third controls the filter cutoff. That’s it. But the LFOs are able to move into audio frequencies and so the Kawai S100F has a rival in ear spitting ring modulated screeches.

Apparently the phones ran hot after I had snapped this up, as people without my lightning greed were left out in the cold. Fuck ’em. This hole was made for me.